my hair into a bun like hers, using my pencil to secure it. Mom and I were exactly 20 years to the day apart in age. Her hair had lightened over the years, but when she was young it had been red like mine. We had the same porcelain skin, the same blue eyes and the same fiery temperament. My dad—real dad—used to say the temper went with the hair.
She flipped through the packet quickly. “You left the last five problems blank. The final is 20 percent of your grade.”
“Which right now is an A+.”
“If you don’t finish the final, the best you can do is…”
“B+ in the class.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Do two more problems. That will be an A- if they are all correct.”
“They are.”
“Finish two more problems, change your clothes and grab a paintbrush. I can’t eat another meal surrounded by these colors.”
In twelve minutes I had finished the two problems, changed my clothes and was back in the kitchen. Mom was waiting. She watched my brothers through the sliding glass door. They were exploring the old rusty shed in the far left corner of our backyard. What wasn’t rusty was a faded metal gray. It had no windows and the two doors were secured with a padlock. The roof was fairly flat, pitched like a barn and the shed was big enough to hold an elephant.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They are working hard to break into the shed.” When my ten-year-old brother, Gabe, hoisted my seven-year-old brother, Max, to his shoulders and launched him onto the roof, my mother added, “or break Max’s neck.”
Max had an incredible sense of balance and no concept of fear, broken bones or death. My mother merely shifted her weight. She was used to my brothers climbing to unsafe heights. This was mild for Max.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“I have no idea. The previous owners were very old. I doubt the shed has been opened in the last decade.”
Judging from the overgrown weeds surrounding it, I would have guessed at least a decade, maybe two. Scattered around it were a couple old tires, some wood thingies and other junk. After surveying the roof, Max stepped to the edge ready to jump. At this point, I would expect most mothers to frantically fling the sliding glass door open and charge, screaming warnings of broken bones or certain death. Not my mom. She calmly banged on the glass door and wagged her finger. It worked. Max turned around and eased his legs over the side until they connected with Gabe’s shoulders. “Ready to paint?” she asked, walking toward the cabinets.
Last week we picked up all the supplies and took the cabinet doors off their hinges; 26 of them. Mom decided to put my brothers to work, brought the lower cabinet doors outside and laid them on a plastic sheet face down. She gave my brothers a gallon of primer, paint brushes and instructions not to paint anything or anyone but the doors.
In less than two hours, with a music mix of Dave Matthews, Michael Bublé and John Mayer keeping us company, we had covered all the orange wood in the kitchen with primer. We took a short break to goof around singing ‘All of Me’ by Michael Bublé.
My mom had a beautiful voice. She said mine was better, but it wasn’t. We sang together and danced around the kitchen… “All of me, come on take all of me; oh mama, can`t you see? I`m no good without you…”
This was the beginning of the best summer in years. So many things would be different.
Our energy filled the air as my mom and I danced, sang and laughed. We chatted about everything we would do this summer. Then Jon came home. The scent of his cinnamon gum entered the room with him. He looked annoyed. He held his cell phone up toward my mother and it acted like a fun-sucking device, draining all joy and enthusiasm from the room. Or maybe it was Jon doing that.
“You’re home early,” my mother said without emotion. My stepdad’s moods didn’t affect her like they did me.
“Yes, I am. I’ve been calling you for hours. Where is your phone?”
“Upstairs,” she said. “Tess and I were homeschooling earlier.” When my mother was in teacher mode, she insisted on no distractions.
“You don’t appear to be homeschooling now,” Jon said, stating the obvious like it was his job. When, in fact, his job was turning around failing manufacturing plants. He also specialized in uprooting our family every few months, or weeks.
“What is it, Jon?” She asked turning her back on him to study our handiwork.
“When they couldn’t reach you, they called me.”
Mom turned around and huffed. “Spit it out, Jon. Who called? What do they need?”
Jon gave me the eye like I was supposed to leave the room. Not a chance. Well, not unless my mom insisted on it. ‘Savannah,’ was all he said. It wasn’t what my mom had expected. She paled.
“What happened?”
“Two more babies were,” he hesitated, “lost. The second one was this morning.”
My mother was a nurse practitioner, specifically a midwife. She helped women deliver their babies at home and without drugs. We moved every few months because of Jon’s career, and Mom easily found work no matter where we lived. She had a reputation of specializing in complicated pregnancies and wherever we moved, she was in instant demand. We had only lived in Savannah, Georgia for five weeks.
“Mom?” I questioned.
“I may have to go back to Savannah,” she answered.
Jon had left the room now that he had successfully destroyed the mood. It took me a moment to realize my mom had said ‘I have to go back,’ not ‘we.’
“You mean we have to go back?” I corrected.
“No, just me.”
“Why can’t we go with you?” I was speaking for my brothers too, knowing we would all much rather be with my mother than Jon.
“You need to stay here and settle in, finish painting,” she said forcing a smile and pointing outside where my brothers had abandoned their painting duties. “This is going to be our home, Tess. Jon went to a lot of trouble to find a contract that would last a couple years instead of a couple months. We have a home now.”
Jon re-entered the room hearing her statement regarding his work. He held out her cell phone smiling as if he had done something spectacular by finding a long-term contract so we wouldn’t have to move in a month or inhabit another hotel. I watched as she read her text messages.
When she finished I asked, “How long?”
“There are two women with complicated pregnancies. They need me there for their deliveries. Their due dates are only a couple weeks apart.”
“How long?” I asked again.
“Two, maybe three weeks, but Jon won’t have to go to the plant every day.”
“And when he does go, you’re leaving us alone?”
